Soul by Ludacris SL300 review:
Soul by Ludacris SL300

If your focus is bass, the lively treble flares and rounded lower frequencies are similar to the Beats by Dre headphones. Whereas the bass on the Monsters feels more staggered and all over the place, we actually prefer the Soul by Ludacris headphones for their controlled sparkle and ample noise isolation.

Still, although the headphones will definitely block outside noise as you walk down the street or listen to music in the office, they also leak a lot of sound, so we don't recommend you crank the volume up on an airplane, a subway, or anywhere else where others may not want to hear your favorite Ludacris beat.

We'll also note that the limited frequency response inhibits the headphone's ability to accurately pinpoint spatial changes in music recordings; in other words, you'll have a hard time placing the location of the instruments in relation to where the microphones were placed in the recording space.

The spatial realism suffers as a result, although that won't be an issue if you're primarily listening to music with artificial instruments like drum machines and synthesizers.

Conclusion
The Soul by Ludacris SL300 headphones are suitable for blocking outside noise and add a colorful sonic boost to bass-heavy genres like hip-hop, house, and rock music. We recommend them over competing models like the Monster Beats by Dr. Dre headphones thanks to their more controlled low-end that doesn't sacrifice ambient noise isolation.

Justin Yu covers headphones and peripherals for CNET. When he's not wading through Web gulch or challenging colleagues to typing tests, you can find him making fun of technology with Jeff Bakalar every afternoon on The 404 show.
See full bio